PETER LLOYD: Queensland's tough new bikie laws have been tested tonight in a bail hearing for an alleged senior gang member.

The former Brisbane Bronco player Michael Kenneth Spence is accused of involvement in a multi-million dollar amphetamine drug ring.

But the assumption of bail has been removed for members of criminal gangs under Queensland's new draconian laws, and Spence is alleged to be a senior Hells Angels member.

A short time ago, Spence was refused bail. Our reporter Donna Field is at the court.

Donna tell us a little about the man at the centre of this case, Michael Spence.

DONNA FIELD: Well Michael Spence as you say is a former Bronco, he played a game for the Broncos, he's a qualified plumber. He's newly engaged, he's a 25-year-old man who basically is alleged to been involved in the Hells Angels for many years and to have been involved in a drug trafficking ring in the last few months - that police have 4,000 phone taps that they say prove his involvement.

What's become clear in this bail case and why it was so controversial though is that Spence resigned his membership from the Hells Angels about a week before Queensland's controversial new laws came into play, and so the court had to establish whether he was a member of a criminal gang and agreed that he wasn't. But what he was, was a member of a criminal organisation of three people and that category also falls under these new laws.

So it's been a two-day hearing for a bail hearing, which is quite extraordinary and the Chief Magistrate Tim Carmody took a long time delivering his judgement. Basically we heard the Premier in Queensland over the past week, Campbell Newman, accusing judges and magistrates of being out of touch and not being accountable.

Tim Carmody wasn't going to be accused of that.

PETER LLOYD: Alright, well let's unpack exactly what he said. He took a lot of time to go through his reasons, tell us what they were?

DONNA FIELD: Well some of the comments that he made were that bail has always been a complex discretionary realm, and that it's naive and dangerous to expect too much of any human system unless they want to replace humans with robots.

So these are obviously in response to comments from the executive from the Government this week. He also talked about external pressure or ideology from any source and public opinion not coming into play in court rooms.

Basically at the end of the day though, it was found that Spence was a member of this organisation and therefore he could not be granted bail because under this new system there is no presumption of bail - the onus is upon the defendant to prove that he wasn't a member of a criminal organisation, and that wasn't established.

PETER LLOYD: Did you get a sense that this is a judge who's willing complying or is he expressing protest in the detail here?

DONNA FIELD: I think there has been some protest in the detail. The fact that Tim Carmody, the Chief Magistrate, said yesterday there is a new bail regime in town and I don't want police officers to be lazy in providing information to the court, would tend to lead one to believe that he is indeed perhaps like the rest of the legal community a little flummoxed by these new laws.

Obviously sitting members of the judiciary are hand strung on what they can say publicly but in this forum there certainly was some discontent.

PETER LLOYD: And by good luck or good management, Michael Spence retired himself from a formal position with this organisation - the Hells Angels. Why did that not save his skin?

DONNA FIELD: Because he's still under these new laws. These new laws as well as talking about bikie members of criminal gangs also talk about organisations of three or more people involved in criminal activity being subject to these new laws, and he's alleged with two co-accused, who will appear in court on Monday, of running this multi-million dollar methamphetamine ring.

PETER LLOYD: Briefly tell us what it is the Hells Angels are alleged to be up to in Queensland?

DONNA FIELD: Well essentially running drugs, trafficking in drugs, running tattoo parlours, laundering money through those parlours and other businesses. Certainly we've seen over the past few weeks several closed down businesses just shut their doors or put a, you know, 'we're away for a while' on their door, a sign saying that they're not doing business anymore.

But the Government says that they're grubs and that they will rid the state of them by any means possible